


On Your Six

by Pteropoda (SilentP)



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Gen, Pranking, Teleportation, Trine Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28536072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentP/pseuds/Pteropoda
Summary: Skywarp wants to teach Starscream to give better orders. Starscream wants to teach Skywarp not to be so annoying. Thundercracker thinks they should both stop, so he doesn't have to be stuck in the middle.
Relationships: Skywarp & Starscream & Thundercracker (Transformers)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43
Collections: Secret Solenoid '20-'21





	On Your Six

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheBestDecepticonLeader](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBestDecepticonLeader/gifts).



> A secret solenoid gift! Based on the prompt "Skywarp pranks his trine, Starscream plots a revenge prank and Thundercracker is disappointed but not surprised." I hope you enjoy it! I tried to balance their bombastic personalities with genuine affection in a sibling/friend sense, so I hope I've achieved it.

“He’s really being a slagger, you know?” 

Thundercracker grunted in response. His clear lack of interest wasn’t enough to deter Skywarp, however, who tapped a few keys at his console in a desultory way before leaning back to complain in Thundercracker’s direction again. 

“It’s not like pinging coordinates on the battlefield is going to help anything when everything changes. It’ll just take me longer to warp because I’ll be thinking about calling the stupid numbers out, and then he’ll just get mad when I have to change coordinates anyway because some stupid Autobot shot a missile into the wrong place.” 

Thundercracker didn’t even grunt this time. He just stared down at his screen, painstakingly entering the data from their scouting expedition. They’d found a human energy production facility that looked like a promising target for a raid, and Thundercracker cared a lot more about noting down the pitiful defenses the humans had put in place than he did about whatever argument Skywarp and Starscream were having over their last loss. 

For a few blissful moments, Skywarp was—not silent, asking that was a bit much of Skywarp, but at least quiet, as he entered in the data from his own scouting flight. Thundercracker could hear the slide of his plating and the low rumble of his vocalizer as he muttered to himself, but he had learned to tune all of that out in the millennia working with his trinemate. 

“I just don’t see why it’s a problem for me to just shout ‘on your six’ before I warp! It’s more useful than plugging a coordinate ping into GPS software.” 

Thundercracker clenched his jaw and jabbed harder at his console’s screen. Just a few more landmarks to note in and then he was done. 

“Thundercracker, you know what I mean, right? Isn’t it inconvenient?” 

Clearly, he wasn’t getting out of this. Thundercracker glanced over at Skywarp, to find the other seeker staring at him expectantly. 

“I think that’s between you and Starscream,” Thundercracker said. “If the trine leader wants you to call out coordinates, I’m not going to argue with him.” 

Skywarp scoffed. “You think it’s stupid too,” he declared. “You’re just doing that thing.” 

“What thing?” 

“The thing where you—” Skywarp waved a hand and twitched his wings, as though that would illustrate what he meant with any sort of clarity (it didn’t). “Where you agree but you don’t want to deal with Starscream being huffy. That thing.” 

“I don’t do that,” Thundercracker lied. 

“Whatever,” Skywarp said, rolling his optics. “You don’t like it either, so I guess it’s up to me to show him that it’s a terrible idea.” 

“That’s—” Thundercracker started to say. 

“You’re going to try to tell me it’s a terrible idea,” Skywarp said with a grin. “You’re wrong. I won’t do anything that bad. I’m just making my point!” 

Thundercracker pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just… Leave me out of it.” 

* * *

Despite having advance warning that Skywarp was up to something, Thundercracker still wasn’t expecting it when he finally put his plans, such as they were, into motion. It was a normal cycle for the Decepticons. They were narrowing down their next target, thanks to some research on Soundwave and Reflector’s parts, and now Starscream was in charge of putting together another “scouting” mission, this one as a diversionary tactic to misdirect the Autobots’ attention. 

They were supposed to be meeting as a trine on the top deck before deploying, but although Starscream and Thundercracker were there, Skywarp was nowhere to be found. 

“Where is he?” Starscream grumbled. 

Thundercracker shrugged. “He knows the time,” he started to say, when coordinates pinged over the comm. 

Thundercracker barely had a chance to register what that meant before Skywarp burst into existence with a pop and a rush of displaced air, right in front of Starscream. Thundercracker jerked back hard enough to bang his wingtips into the wall, but his reaction was nothing compared to Starscream, who gave a screeching yelp and swiped at Skywarp in panicked reflex. 

Skywarp must have been anticipating the move because he darted back with a gleeful cackle, his wings hiked high with amusement. “You should have seen your expression!” He crowed. 

“Skywarp!” Starscream hissed furiously. “What do you think you’re doing?” 

“Just making sure I got here on time, Starscream,” Skywarp said with a wink. “You don’t want to make us late, do you, Commander?” 

Starscream gave Skywarp a furious look, but straightened again and flicked his wings. “You’re lucky that you’re right,” he huffed at Skywarp. “Now let’s go.” 

Thundercracker flicked his wings to try and shake out the ache where his wingtips had collided with the wall and did his best to ignore the sinking feeling in his spark. He had a good idea where this was going. 

* * *

Skywarp behaved himself on the scouting mission, which didn’t turn into a battle, much to Thundercracker’s relief, but he became a menace when they returned to base. He started warping anywhere and everywhere he could, and always— _always—_ around Starscream. The only warning would be a blip of coordinates, always sent with no time to process and barely enough time to brace oneself beforehand. 

Starscream caught on quickly, not that it was difficult. Skywarp seemed to take great care to teleport as physically close to Starscream as he could manage, despite the dents it occasionally earned him. Every ping of his comm had Starscream flinching, then after a few solar cycles of the exercise, lashing out whenever someone startled him. It resulted in a dented wing for Thundercracker, and a truly impressive break to Skywarp’s nasal ridge when Starscream headbutted him. 

To his credit, Starscream was apologetic about Thundercracker’s wing, and he made sure that Hook saw to Skywarp’s nose, though only after shouting at him for a while. Skywarp laughed it off, and when Thundercracker walked him down to Hook for repairs, he’d winked and said, “worth it.” Thundercracker had held in a sigh of frustration and shared a look of suffering with Hook. 

It was only when Skywarp teleported into the rec room and made Starscream pop an entire energon cube over himself and the floor that Starscream broke. 

“You!” he shrieked, scraping rivulets of energon off of his cockpit and flicking them at Skywarp. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but this ends now!” 

“I’m doing what you told me to!” Skywarp protested. He was grinning, still lighthearted, but Thundercracker knew Skywarp just as well as he knew Starscream. Just as he could see from the narrowing of Starscream’s optics and the trembling of his wingtips that he had reached his last nerve, he could see from the nervous twitch in Skywarp’s smile that he knew he’d pushed a bit too far. Wasting precious resources and making Starscream look silly were both grave offenses, and apt to make Starscream go off like a bomb. 

It didn’t stop Skywarp from remaining committed to his prank, of course, even as he put up his hands defensively and backed slowly away from Starscream, still grinning. “You asked me to ping you coordinates before warping! This is practice for that. I’m just doing what I’d do on the battlefield!” 

Starscream’s face twisted with indignant fury. He jabbed a finger in Skywarp’s direction, but rather than launch into the blistering lecture that Thundercracker expected, he continued to point, then turned away, his wings hiked high with agitation as he stalked off. 

Skywarp turned to Thundercracker with a hopeful expression. “Think he caught on?” 

“Maybe,” Thundercracker said, but he had that sinking feeling in his stomach again. 

* * *

Starscream didn’t rescind the order. He made it official policy, and wrote it down in their official strategy guides, then forced Skywarp to read it. Skywarp retaliated by pulling the tactic into drills, and he sent them spiraling out of formation with it more than once. Starscream nearly crashed into the ocean more than once. 

It was a slow, protracted picture of Starscream losing his temper and Skywarp digging his heels in. Thundercracker started to avoid the both of them whenever he could-- being seen with one or the other would quickly become equivalent to taking sides, and Thundercracker had no intention of being seen as part of this. He had no intention to be dragged into playing moderator, either, and if it meant that he had to hang out with Soundwave’s cassettes or the coneheads for a while, then he could deal with it. 

That didn’t mean that it worked, exactly. They still did have to spend time together, and Thundercracker had to at least make sure that the other two didn’t die and leave him without a trine. So, when one day Starscream didn’t come out of the lab for two shifts, Thundercracker grabbed a cube and makes his way down. 

His first knock on the door earned him no response, so Thundercracker punched in his code and entered, hanging resolutely by the entrance. “Starscream?” 

Starscream was leaning over a table in a position that looked incredibly uncomfortable, fiddling with a device filled with all too many wires and nodes and all sorts of other things that Thundercracker didn’t like the look of. He didn’t even look up as Thundercracker stepped inside. “What is it?” 

“That’s what I should be asking you,” Thundercracker said, eying the device suspiciously. “I brought energon.”

“Oh.” 

That, apparently, was enough to pull Starscream away from his work. He stepped up and stretched his back and his wings with a groan. “Good,” he said, beckoning Thundercracker over. Thundercracker, reluctantly, came over. 

“Should energon be getting near that thing?” he asked. 

Starscream scoffed and took the cube out of his hand. “It’s not explosive,” he said. “It’s just a little something for Skywarp.” 

“What kind of something,” Thundercracker asked, reluctantly, but feeling obligated to at least determine whether Starscream was creating some sort of murder device. 

“Oh, just a little something to teach him a lesson. It won’t cause any sort of damage, don’t worry. I can see you fretting from here.” 

“I wasn’t fretting,” Thundercracker lied, crossing his arms over his cockpit. “I just didn’t want to have to find another trinemate.” 

“You won’t have to, if this works,” Starscream said, clearly satisfied. “I’m just teaching him the dangers of warping into a situation without being thoroughly prepared for the results.”

“And how will this do that?” Thundercracker asked, reluctantly. 

Starscream smirked. “Oh, my dear Thundercracker, you’ll see.” 

* * *

He didn’t see it immediately. Starscream’s hours in the lab were curtailed by the preparations for their raid, and by his apparent determination to keep Skywarp from finding out anything about what he was planning. Thundercracker came across him in the labs occasionally. He heard Skywarp complaining about Starscream’s rigidness at other times. He also saw Skywarp getting the jump on Starscream several more times. He got a few dents and laughed them off, and Starscream took great satisfaction in those attacks that he got in, and got a maniacal glint into his eye the more it happened. Thundercracker did his best to stay out of it. 

It continued, escalating each time until the day before the raid. Thundercracker hardly saw Skywarp without a dent or two these days, and Starscream had a twitchy look about him. Thundercracker considered breaking his promise to himself and stepping in-- letting Skywarp and Starscream handle it was fine, but if it affected their ability to perform in the raid, Megatron would surely let them hear about it. 

He was determined to say something about it before their last flight practice of the raid, but when he showed up, Starscream was there, smiling maniacally, turning over a device in his hand. “Ah, Thundercracker!” he said. “Good. Are you ready to see my solution?” 

“No,” Thundercracker said, “but I don’t think you’re going to let me stop you.”

“Not at all,” Starscream assured him. “Oh, don’t look so worried. I won’t cause him any permanent damage.” 

“You remember that we have a raid tomorrow?” Thundercracker asked rhetorically. Starscream just chuckled and set the device down on the ground in front of it. A few pokes and the device began to hum. Then Starscream crossed his arms in front of him, smirked, and they waited. 

Sure enough, it didn’t take long before Skywarp appeared in his usual puff of air, with a laugh and a smirk. Starscream and Thundercracker both jumped, but before anyone could move, a beam of light shot up out of Starscream’s device, engulfing Skywarp. Starscream cackled, Skywarp yelped, and Thundercracker started forward, ready to-- something. 

“Starscream! What the frag!” Skywarp yelled. 

“That, Skywarp, is a proximity-activated force field,” Starscream gloated. “It’s quite useful for anticipating… surprise attacks.” 

Thundercracker slowed, then re-evaluated. Sure enough, Skywarp didn’t look at all damaged. He was just frozen in place, giving Starscream his best glare. He could barely even twitch his wings, which Thundercracker could see trying to quiver with annoyance. 

“Let me go,” he growled. 

“No,” Starscream said. “I don’t think I will. I think the two of us need to have a talk, don’t you?” 

“I think you need to let me down,” Skywarp complained. “Starscream!” 

“I’ll let you down once I’ve had my say,” Starscream said. His smile was as wide as a sharkticon’s. “Now. I am… willing to change my orders. You have made your… preferences clear.” 

“And?” Skywarp asked impatiently. “You couldn’t just have done this sooner?” 

“Well, Skywarp,” Starscream said impishly. “I’m going to need a few concessions, first. In exchange for all of the annoyance you’ve put me through to prove your point.” 

Skywarp made a noise of outrage. “You’ve punched me like eighty times!” He protested. 

“I could still do it again,” Starscream offered. Skywarp’s mouth snapped closed. “Yes, I thought so. No, I think that, after all this trouble, I deserve an errand boy. Someone to fetch my energon, write my reports… do anything I ask. What do you say?” 

“I’m going to get you back for this,” Skywarp hissed. Starscream just waited, his arms crossed over his cockpit, smirking infuriatingly. It didn’t take long for Skywarp to break. “Fine. Fine!” he hissed. “I’ll do it. Just let me down!” 

“Three months,” Starscream told him. 

Skywarp spat a curse at him. “Fine!” 

Starscream nodded and nudged at the device with his foot. The light disappeared, and Skywarp stumbled as the force holding him up disappeared. He warped-- away, this time, reappearing several wingspans away from both Starscream and Thundercracker and shaking out his wings and limbs with a dark look. 

Thundercracker couldn’t contain his sigh. “Now that that’s over with,” he said, shaking his helm, “Can we get to work?” 

* * *

_“On your left!”_ Skywarp’s voice called out over the comm. Thundercracker twisted in the air and rode the pop of air that Skywarp displaced with familiar ease. “Nice! Told you it was better to call it this way. We’ll take down those Autobot fraggers, no problem.” 

_“Sure will,”_ Thundercracker agreed, diving down to strafe the grounders with his cannons. Skywarp followed him with a whoop of joy. 

_“You two!”_ Starscream screeched over the comms. “ _Come cover me! This stupid Prime is trying to shoot me!”_

 _“You sure you can’t handle it, Starscream?”_ Skywarp teased. 

_“That is an order! You owe me!”_

_“Ugh,”_ Skywarp groaned, but there was a hint of amusement in his voice. _“I guess I do. C’mon, Thundercracker. Let’s go save our great leader, why don’t we?”_

 _“I never agreed to this,”_ Thundercracker grumbled, but he still twisted into a tight turn, diving toward the distant figure of the Prime. 

_“You decided to stick with this crazy trine, that's when you agreed to it,”_ Skywarp said, laughing, and disappeared in a rush. _“Hey, Starscream! On your six!”_


End file.
